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Chapter One:
A Literature Review 'I am not an animal, I am a human being. ' John Merrick (John Hurt) in
The Elephant Man This chapter is split into two parts. The first deals with general representation theories of disability
and the second with more specific issues of the stereotypical representation of
disability. I refer to the same writers
in both sections due to the scarcity of available literature on disability and
impairment imagery. The Representation of Disability (which is actually of impairment)!
There is more literature on images of disability in literature, both the
popular and the literary canon, than on film with Dickens (in general) and Edith
Wharton (especially her novel Ethan Frome, 1987,
also filmed under the same title [John Madden, US/GB, 1993]) singled out for repeated
criticism. It is interesting to note
how film adaptations of Dickens' work are largely ignored in the literature that
exists on disability imagery in films. As an example one need only look at films
with ‘Tiny Tim’ in them, films such as A Christmas Carol (E.L. Marin, US, 1938) and Scrooge (B.D.
Hurst, GB, 1951; Ronald Neame, GB, 1970 – a musical version). There is also the modernised American
version, with the ‘Tiny Tim’ character being black and mute, a film
called Scrooged (Richard Donner, US, 1988). Even The Muppets get
in on the act with their own Muppet ‘Tiny Tim’ in The Muppet
Christmas Carol (Brian Henson, US, 1993). All these titles are adaptations from
only one Dickens ghost story but there are many other Dickens-derived films using
disability. I shall be discussing
those critics who deal with cinematic representations of disability; although
these writers often combine the two (justifiably) in order to show the cultural
depth and influences that combine to create an abject image of disabled people.
It is interesting to note that most critics, especially from America, use
the term 'disability' when they actually mean and are referring to impairment
– if looked at from a Social Model perspective. The social construction of impairment as Other is rarely intentionally
explored in any depth in disability studies (e.g., Gartner and Joe, 1987) apart
from the work on ‘freaks’ by Fiedler (1978), Bogdan (1988) and Garland
Thompson (1996). In the UK Tom Shakespeare starts to explore the issue in an
article in the disability studies journal Disability,
Handicap and Society entitled ‘Cultural Representations of
Disabled People: [ … ]’ (1994). Much of what I am about to review is short, intentionally superficial,
and taxonomical – listings with very little critical comment. There are now a number of World Wide Web
sites, some originating in the UK, with fairly good lists of films about impairment
on them. (A recommended listing site
can be found at http.//www.caravan.freeserve.co.uk.) One of the reasons for such scarcity is
that impairment is seen, almost exclusively, to be as true in reality as its metaphorical
meaning in literature and cinema: tragic, sad and unbearable – rooted in
the personal tragedy theory of disability (Oliver, 1996).
Many writers of fiction, and academic-based literary or cultural studies,
who address disability often use it as the key to unlock the psyches of normal
people; thereby reifying disability as a quantifiable, justifiable, objective
horror to be feared. Leslie Fiedler's book Freaks (1978)
is a good example of such a tendency. Bogdan (1988) states of Fiedler's work that his mythological
and psychoanalytical approach posits that: human
beings have a deep, psychic fear of people with specific abnormalities. Dwarfs, for example, confront us with
our phobia that we will never grow up. Yet
although Fiedler's study of 'human curiosities' shifts the focus from 'them' to
'us', it also reifies 'freak' by taking 'it' as a constant and inevitable outpouring
of basic human nature. (p.7) In other words, Fiedler accepts the Medical Model of
disability as truth; for him the normal are justifiably afraid of the abnormal
(and will always be so) because abnormality exists naturally – somewhat
metaphysically - to mystify human comprehension. For Fiedler, disability, abnormality and impairment are a natural
state, and all the same thing in essence, that is, pathologically abhorrent; Fiedler
argues that culture merely reflects this abhorrence in the arts. Fiedler seems to be unaware – even
dismissive – of the idea that abnormality is in anyway a constructed state
that various people socio-culturally inhabit (voluntarily in many cases of 'freaks').
Bogdan, on the other hand, shows the process of social construction of
the freak in the freak show when he tells the story, in Freak Show (1988),
of a showman who meets a tall man. The showman tells him that he thinks that the man is tall,
then makes him an offer he cannot refuse: How would you like to be a giant?
Such a simple tale shows the extent to which being a giant is less redolent
of abnormality than it is of showmanship and publicity: i.e., a construction. Although neither has much to say on disability as seen in the
modern world of cinema, Bogdan's book is a useful tool in understanding that the
‘Elephant Man’ was as much a creation in the freak show as he is in
David Lynch's film The Elephant Man. Although Fiedler mentions the cinema (i.e.,
the 'dwarf' in Day of the Locust [John
Schlesinger, US, 1975]) it is only to reinforce the idea of abnormality as a natural
worry to a normal psyche; a view that continues to mystify abnormality as pathologically
deviant and threatening. Gartner and Joe, in Images of the Disabled, Disabling Images (1987),
compile a collection of essays that come much closer to questioning the construction
of disability in life and culture than any other book written prior to Barnes
(1992) or Norden's (1994) studies of disability imagery. Barnes and Norden are examined in detail
later and in the following chapter. Only one chapter of the twelve in Gartner and Joe deals with
cinema specifically, but it is placed within a context of the construction of
disability in many discourses, discourses that interact to make disability appear
to be 'common sense'. By common sense
they mean the Medical Model of disability that places
it as deviant, pathological and suffered by the individual concerned, with society's
only responsibility being to care for, or cure, it. Gartner and Joe’s book demonstrates
that disability is as constructed in legislation as it is in literature and classroom
technology. The chapter on impairment
and cinema is Paul Longmore's 'Screening Stereotypes: Images of Disabled People'. Longmore looks at all forms of impairment on film and television: impairments
of speech, vision, intellect and physique. Longmore's first significant point is
that there 'are hundreds of characters with all sorts of disabilities' represented.
They range from 'monsters' and 'crippled criminals' to cartoon characters like
Elmer Fudd and Mr Magoo (p.65). The reason we forget that images of the disabled are everywhere,
for Longmore, is that entertainment is an escape and, as such, the bits that do
not help us escape we erase from our memory. Longmore astutely states that such representations: tell
us that the problem is not as painful or as overwhelming as we fear, that it is
manageable, or that it is not really our problem at all, but someone else's. (p.66) Longmore is beginning to explore a key element of impairment representations
when he argues that they are a functionalist exercise in social interaction (they
enable people to interact with one another more effectively).
Longmore fails to continue in this rich vein.
Instead, he gives us mere examples of disability imagery he considers negative:
negative because, for Longmore, they make disability pathological and the determining
characteristic of the character as a natural characteristic of disablement (i.e.,
obsessive behaviour in characters such as Ahab, Richard III and both the Doctors
No and Strangelove). Longmore gives
us the first labelled stereotype of a disabled character: that disability is a
consequence of his / her own evil, which, in turn, makes him / her bitter and
vengeful. I do not disagree with
this –there might be an element of truth within the latter part of such
a representation. The issue, from
a Social Model perspective, is to comprehend
the ideological basis of such a representation as axiomatic yet without dismissing
the potential validity of such a representation (or behaviour) if it be from the
point of view of a character who has an impairment.
However, as Longmore states, such villainous and embittered characters
do re-validate the generally accepted idea that disability and impairment are
inherently linked to evil and that such behaviour is a pathological characteristic
of having an impairment. Longmore is expert at demonstrating, with a list of examples, how impairment
is shown as being both less than human and indicative of a hatred of all that
is human (Longmore relates this to Goffman's (1990) assertion that such a labelling
is part of stigmatisation). Longmore (following on from Fiedler) sees disability portrayals
as a threat to normal psychology; he states that: [W]hatever
the specific nature of disability, it unleashes violent propensities that normally would
be kept in check by internal mechanisms of self-control. (p.68) Although Longmore continues to explain that the result of this for the
disabled individual is social isolation, he fails to accept that the propensities
are indeed the case in some situations and this is, as such, a valid representation.
By the rejection of a certain kind of behaviour he himself turns into a
socio-political negative similar behaviour by disabled people themselves, in turn
validating their expulsion from society by advocating its expulsion from the cinema
screen. In examining why disabled
characters are often dead by the end of the movie, giving The Elephant Man as an example, Longmore states that this implies
that it is 'better to be dead than disabled' (p.70). Again, I do not dispute such an interpretation in theory, but
he is not accepting that this can be the lived reality of some disabled people.
This is especially so when combined with Longmore's assertion (p.70) that
a film is negative because it states that 'disability [impairment] means a total
physical dependency that deprives the individual of autonomy and self-determination'. The appearance of dependency is not in
itself negative, it is the negation of it that is negative. What undermines many of the representations
of impairment that Longmore is concerned about, from a Social Model perspective, is perhaps the films’ lack of a critique of the process
of disempowerment of the impaired characters in them rather than the actual state
of physical dependency. Longmore isolates two other stereotypes of disability portrayal: individuals
adjusting to their disability (or to be more specific, their impairment) and the
asexual or hypersexual disabled character. Within the stereotype of the disabled
individual 'adjusting' Longmore sees the 'bitter' individual coming to terms with
the impairment (and disablement, by extension). However, this is only after the normal lead has shown them
the way (e.g., The Men [Fred Zimmermann, US, 1950]
- Marlon Brando in a wheelchair for his first film - being cited as a good example).
Equally, newly impaired characters
are often compensated with some extra talent or special gift. A good example of the extra / special
gift scenario is the visually / hearing impaired having exceptional hearing /
vision (i.e., The Story of Alexander Graham Bell, Irving
Cummings, US, 1939, and Blind Fury, Phillip
Noyce, US, 1989, respectively) or both - as in The Story of Esther Costello (David Miller, GB/US, 1957). These are common cinematic themes indeed;
Longmore's example of the blind being better able to see into
the heart of man is a wonderfully vague example that could be applied to many
'blind' films. ‘Blind’
films such as The Enchanted Cottage (John Cromwell, US,
1945), A Man on the Beach (Joseph Losey, GB, 1956), No
Trees in the Street (J. Lee-Thompson, GB, 1958) and Cactus (Paul
Cox, Australia, 1986) to name only a selection. The visually impaired also being innately musical is another
good example of the crassness of many images of visual impairment (Darke, 1997),
as in Blink, Jennifer 8, Frankenstein (James
Whale, US, 1931) and Night Song (John
Cromwell, US, 1947). Each stereotype
Longmore lists could, and often does, overlap with another; the 'brave' or 'tragic'
impaired individual is often shown within, or alongside, their criminal, monster
or adjusting (and occasionally sexual) stereotype. For example, the 'Elephant Man', Merrick,
is made more courageous and then tragic by his adjustment to his deformity.
Longmore is right to assert that: these
stories put the responsibility for any problems squarely and almost exclusively
on the disabled individual. If they
are socially isolated, it is not because the disability inevitably has cut them
off from the community or because society has rejected them. Refusing to accept
themselves with their handicaps, they have chosen isolation. (p.71) The above quote ascribes to cinema an ideology of impairment firmly placed
within a Medical Model of disability, but this is
hardly a surprise when the Medical Model of disability has an
almost complete hegemonic dominance within most Western cultures (Oliver, 1991).
It is a dominance supported by almost all other forms of cultural and social
discourse; be it in social policy (Oliver and Barnes, 1998; Drake, 1999), charity
(Hevey, 1992) or legislation (Barnes, 1991).
It is naïve to expect anything different, yet it is unfair to be overtly
critical of those individuals with impairments who choose isolation. For many disabled people isolation is
better than humiliation, the usual result of many attempts by the abnormal to
try and enter the sphere of normality (Morris, 1996; Murphy, 1991). The sexual aspects of impairment are, for Longmore, often portrayed contradictorily.
Some characters will be impotent at the slightest hint of disability whilst
others will have an insatiable need for sexual satisfaction (often depending upon
with which other stereotype of impairment it is overlapping). Longmore relates sexual impotence to the desire of the audience
to see disability as not worth living with and my later chapter on disability
and the family shows in detail how this is textually achieved. Longmore cites both the play and film
of Whose Life Is It Anyway? as, for him, the best example
of the stereotype of the disabled person as sexually inadequate. For Longmore it is a wholly negative portrayal
of a disabled person with sexual dysfunction as it portrays the individual as
'only half a man' (p.73). Whilst not deviating from the principal point of Longmore's
argument, the Social Model of
disablement would necessitate that the situation / scenario be placed in its context
of a social discourse (cinema itself, for example) of what constitutes masculinity
and therefore a man. In such a context
the character is right to assume that he is only half a man in his own culture,
as he is seen by others both culturally and in reality as, once disabled, sexually
liminal. The film's limitations are revealed in its support of such
a supposition rather than if it had been either critical of such an attitude or,
at least, aware of it as a form of social construction. A strand of argument that Longmore (and
others) fail to pursue, the discourse of what man is, is
the very discourse that is used to marginalise the impaired and instigate their
self doubt (what Gilman [1988] calls 'self-hate'). Such representations are not bad or negative in themselves;
rather, there is nothing essentially 'wrong' (socially or culturally) in being
impotent or physically dependent. Perhaps the error of positive disability writers and their discourse is
to argue that these negative portrayals should not be presented (a view towards
which Longmore leans). Longmore’s
philosophy – and the films of which he is rightly critical - serve only
to marginalise those who are impotent (or the like) still further in the hope
that those who are not impotent (or physically dependent, for example) are treated
more fairly. Longmore’s philosophical
position reinforces the idea of normality and impairment as disability.
Longmore seems to want it both ways. He is critical of films that represent the disabled as sexually
dysfunctional as well as those that represent the severely impaired individual
as having no trouble attracting the opposite sex; he cites as an example the double
amputee in The Best Years of Our Lives (William
Wyler, US, 1946). Prior to these examples he states that 'even when a disability
does not limit sexual functioning, it may impair the person emotionally' (p.73).
Unfortunately, although this is a statement about the negative way some films
attribute emotional problems to the sexually functional disabled the sentence
is stranded in isolation. It validates such a statement as a 'truth' in itself: the opposite
of what Longmore is actually trying to say, but which in many instances is the
lived reality of disabled people. Longmore is very close to Fiedler's tendency to concentrate
on how they, the normal audience, see us, the disabled, whilst having a view of
us that, although based on a Social Model of disability, excludes
the social reality of having an impairment in a society dominated by the Medical
Model. Longmore
(as with Fiedler) succumbs to classifying having an impairment as being a victim,
something he himself is trying to condemn. Longmore continues to write that the upper-body
limb amputee character in The Best Years of Our Lives is
accepted by his wife with no problems and that: [T]hese
depictions fly in the face of the real-life experiences of many handicapped men
and women who find that even the most minor impairments result in romantic rejection.
(p.73) Unfortunately, Longmore, in stating the above, is forcing himself into
an analytical corner by arguing that disability with and without standard sexual
functioning does impair the person emotionally but that any portrayal that shows
this factor is inherently negative to all disabled people. Longmore is concentrating on the representation
as negative at the expense of social discourse and, as such, he is failing to
acknowledge that disability often does lead to an emotional impairment due to
the often prohibitive and contradictory socio-cultural discourses experienced
by an impaired individual (Barnes, 1991). This, though, is not due to impairment
itself but the social construction or view of it and its alternatives, i.e., normality.
Longmore continues that: these
features also reiterate, with the active complicity of the disabled participants
themselves, the view that disability is a problem of individual emotional coping
and physical overcoming, rather than an issue of social discrimination against
a stigmatised minority. (p.75) Longmore is correct to sum up filmic representations of disability in the
above manner. What is unfortunate
is the criticism of individual disabled performers’ acting and working in
films, given the limited opportunities disabled actors have for performing in
the film - media - industry (Pointon, 1997). It is unsurprising that they choose to
act in a way which is required by the film (i.e., their employment conditions)
in order to get experience and seek to change an industry from within (Shaban,
1997; Fernandez, 1997); the alternative is probably obscurity and unemployment.
In brief, to show impairment in any other way would be to devalue disability
as it is lived by the vast majority of disabled people in this or most other societies. In Western societies disability is about
individual’s coping and overcoming impairments and this must be recognised
in any broader cultural analysis. Failure to do so would fall into the same trap that the Medical
Model encapsulates: insular dogmatism so abstract that it loses its relevance
to the lived experience of those with impairments. I would agree that social discrimination
and exclusion is the flowering of a Medical Model philosophy
of disability construction, but its impact is rooted within the individual’s
coping and physically overcoming those socially constructed barriers of disablement
as defined in the Social Model of
disablement. An awareness of the
dominance of the Medical Model in current social processes,
its hegemony over the everyday lives of disabled people (Oliver and Barnes, 1998),
at least explains why so many disabled people 'enjoy' negative images of their
group. Longmore seems to hold the
underlying philosophy that the impaired are normal really; an interpretation that
is reinforced by his closing section on what a good or positive representation
of impairment is. For Longmore the most important representational 'breakthrough' came in
commercials (for Levi Jeans, Macdonalds and
Kodak) in
the United States. In these, for Longmore, disabled people: are
not portrayed as helpless and dependent, but rather as attractive, active, and
with it, involved and competitive, experiencing 'normal' relationships [ ... ]
and smart about what they buy [ ...
] these commercials offer perhaps the most positive media images of people with
disabilities to date. (p.78) It is difficult to see how such representations can be classified as positive,
even by Longmore, as they are even less concerned with 'social discrimination'
than the films of which Longmore is critical. For Longmore the 'breakthrough' is in
having disabled people as normal consumers; a fact which flies even further in
the face of reality as disabled people are usually among the poorest people of
Western societies (Berthoud et al, 1993; Russell, 1998), increasingly
so if you are both black and disabled (Stuart, 1993; Russell, 1998).
Like most ‘situated position’ writing about what is ‘positive’,
the problem of positive / negative as a battle between the real and the ideal
and as either positive / negative is almost never resolved; its basic conclusions
invariably tend towards being reductionist.
In my view, such positive images as identified by Longmore increase the
marginalisation of those who have impairments. Such images marginalise further those who are not willing to
be normalised or are not capable of being normalised - the unattractive impairments,
the severely speech impaired and the severely disabled who are totally physically
dependent - and cannot, or want not to, push themselves around in their wheelchairs
playing basketball in Nike trainers.
To consider such pseudo-normal representations as positive pushes further
back the opportunities for equality than supposedly negative portrayals such as
The Best Years of Our Lives or The Elephant Man; at
least these films show 'ugly' impairments being confronted by an able-bodied and
image-obsessed society. ‘Ugly’
impairment imagery in films such as The Best Years of Our Lives or The Elephant Man does
leave a lot to be desired, but at least they make visible – and attractive,
to some extent - impairments that are invariably socially constructed as abject
and unattractive. It is interesting
to note that Longmore sees disabled people as positive in the above-mentioned
commercials because they are being physically competitive; one of the most pertinent
arenas (sport) of disabling social processes in which the inability to be physically
superior is defined. Whilst Longmore sees positivity in, for
me, the most negative area of representation, I would argue that such representations
serve to re-invigorate the supremacy of physical perfection; a supremacy that
must be laid to rest, as a question of moral superiority, if the disabled are
to be seen or treated as equal. Longmore's essay is excellent at showing how impairment has been used to
show contradictory impressions of disability, impressions that are not particularly
positive as they are based within, and upon, the Medical Model of
disability. Perhaps Longmore's error
is that he tends to value normality too much, to the extent that he sees positivity
only in those representations which show the impaired as normal-like people.
As the old disability protest badge said: '[T]he problem with normal people
is that they don't exist'. Jenny Morris, in her book Pride Against Prejudice (1992),
is another disabled writer who writes from a Social Model of
disability perspective and she also has one chapter on disability imagery with,
significantly, her main reference point being Longmore's chapter in the book edited
by Gartner and Joe. Morris erroneously
makes the point that there are very few representations of women with disabilities;
there are a considerable number of women with hearing or visual impairments in
various films. There are films such
as Johnny Belinda (Jean
Negulesco, US, 1948) and Magnificent Obsession (Douglas
Sirk, US, 1954), to name only two that both star Jane Wyman. There are also a considerable number of
films with female wheelchair users like Morris herself, for example: Kiss
of Death (Henry Hathaway, US, 1947); The Man with the
Golden Arm (Otto Preminger, US, 1956); The Wheelchair (Marco
Ferreri, Spain, 1959); Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (Robert
Aldrich, US, 1962); Notorious Landlady (Richard
Quine, GB, 1962); Eye of the Cat (David
Lowell Rich, US, 1969); The Raging Moon; Annie’s
Coming Out (Gil Brearley, Australia, 1984); Poulet au
Vinaigre; Duet for One; Passion
Fish; Crush (Alison Maclean, Australia,
1992); Persons Unknown (George Hickenlooper,
US, 1996); and Dance to My Song (Rolf de Heer, Australia,
1998). Of disability representations Morris states that: [T]he
crucial thing about [ ... ] cultural representations of disability is that they
say nothing about the lives of disabled people but everything about the attitudes
of non-disabled people towards the disability. (p.93) Although cultural representations say an enormous amount about how society
views disability it is somewhat reductionist to blame individual non-disabled
people for their attitudes. The non-disabled
are as equally constructed as are the disabled (Canguilhem, 1989) and, as such,
are discouraged - even prevented - from thinking 'correctly' about disability
by a dominant social (society) discourse rooted in the Medical Model – that is the reason for
the creation of a Social Model in the first place. To perceive it differently would be to
embrace the simplistic idea that non-disabled people are obstructive merely out
of ignorance. Equally, it is not
the case that such portrayals of impairment say nothing about the 'real' lives
of the disabled. The most negative
portrayal possible validates the impaired individual's own feelings of insecurity,
confirming that it is society that discriminates
against people with impairments in its structures, relationships and processes
(Barnes, 1990) and representations. This
is true even in any of the similarly titled film versions of The Hunchback
of Notre Dame (Wallace Worsley, US, 1923; William Dieterle,
US, 1939; Jean Delannoy, France/Italy, 1956; and Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise,
US, 1996 – a Disney animation film). Cultural representations do tell us a lot about disability
as it is lived; they must do in order to posit themselves in any form or verisimilitude
of realism (as most cultural representations of disability do).
Even if cultural representations show only a Medical Model view of disability,
one must take into account that it is the model that dominates the everyday lives
of most disabled people (Turner, 1995; Rojek et al, 1988;
Armstrong, 1983; Armstrong, 1990). As
such, they reflect such a nexus’s hegemony back to the majority of impaired
individuals who live under its power, gaze and influence. Morris concentrates, to start with, on My Left Foot; complaining
that it never appreciates Christy Brown's art or fiction but merely wonders at
his 'overcoming all odds' (p.95). Cinematically speaking, this is slightly unfair as to expect
a bio-pic (biographical films) genre film to do something different is a rarity
indeed; most bio-pics concentrate on personal tragedy and triumph rather than
the actual work of the subject (Custen, 1992). Equally, Morris is selective in her comments on the film as
quite a few of Christy’s paintings are shown. The film is an 'overcoming all odds' drama about impairment
that does negativise by its sentimentalisation – the privileging of emotion
over reason (Burgett, 1998; Ellis, 1996; Villa, 1998; Zwinger, 1991) - of Brown's
achievements (which are indeed considerable considering the time and the place
of them - post-World War II Dublin). Morris's next point about My Left Foot reveals
her tendency to see as positive impairment portrayal when it is shown as normal-like
(see Longmore's comments above), a rather surprising contradiction in a book sub-titled
Celebrate the Difference. She writes: [A]t
a formal dinner in a restaurant, Christy abuses the woman who has just told him
that she loves someone else, shouting and pulling the tablecloth off the table.
In other words, he behaves in an oppressive, aggressive and intimidating
manner, not an unusual thing for a non-disabled man to do but film critics seemed
to think it was amazing for a disabled man to behave in this way. Somehow, it
is supposed to be 'progressive' that a disabled man was portrayed as behaving
in a thoroughly obnoxious way. The
makers of this film are not actually portraying the lives of disabled individuals;
rather the disability is a vehicle for exploring the pain of dependency and vulnerability
for men. (p.95) What Morris seems to be suggesting is that obnoxious disabled characters
should not be shown since they give a bad impression of disabled people. If solely obnoxious characters were shown
such an assumption could be true, but, as they are rarely shown in that manner,
it cannot be claimed that it generalises disabled people as obnoxious.
To some extent, the scene should be identified as positive by Morris as
it is shows a normalising degree of Christy’s impairment in its attributing
stereotypical male norms to him. As
Morris states, it is typical male behaviour – though, even here, she is
ignoring female bad behaviour both socially and cinematically. If we combine the above comments with Morris's earlier comments
that the films in question show nothing of the lives lived with an impairment,
we can see that she is setting a particular agenda for how disabled people should
be portrayed and how they should behave: an agenda that is a sanitising generalisation
and mystification of the disability experience, even more so than that of the
film-makers of which she is critical. Personally, the only piece of My
Left Foot that I felt really captured my experience of disability
was the 'obnoxious' scene, a scene that I had 'lived' in my late adolescence.
For Morris to describe the scene as the woman telling Brown that she loves
someone else is also a slight misreading of the film.
Morris implies that there was a particular relationship between the two
characters to start with, when there was not; it could be argued that what the
scene does show is the emotional immaturity that many disabled people experience
when they are isolated and prevented from participating in usual adolescent emotional
experience. Consequently, I would
argue that My Left Foot does
show, in this incident, a great deal about disability as it is lived. The point is that it is often lived through
isolation and ignorance; especially so in post-war Dublin. Within the framework of the Social
Model what is wrong, and films such as My Left Foot fail
to clarify this point, is that such ignorance and isolation is social constructed
and that such constructions legitimate disabling barriers and social exclusion. Alternatively, Morris sees Coming Home (Hal
Ashby, US, 1978) as a positive representation of disability because, fundamentally,
the main impaired character (played by Jon Voight) is not impotent (a misreading,
since he is impotent; and that is the intended positive point of the film).
Again, we have the assertion that positive images are those that are as
close to being normal as possible. Morris's
major criticism of My Left Foot (and Born on the Fourth of July [Oliver
Stone, US, 1989]) is that it: depends
on the stereotype that to be in a wheelchair is to be impotent, unable to be a
complete (hetero)sexual being, and therefore not a complete man. (p.96) The question of impotence as a stereotypical characteristic of disability
(lower limb paralysis especially) is an interesting one, but Morris has completely
misread My Left Foot as, despite other negative
characteristics, Christy Brown is not characterised as impotent. Born On The Fourth of July, to
its credit, examines the shock to an individual - grounded in machismo militarism
- who becomes the cultural antithesis of all that he was: potent became impotent.
As such, it did confront a real experience lived by many men who become,
or became, disabled in such a manner. I
agree that impotence is a generalised theme for the wheelchair user, but there
is a reckless tendency to assert potency at the expense of those who are impotent
due to their medical condition or physical impairment. By stressing that all images of impotence
are bad and 'stereotypical' one is merely relegating into the abyss of ignorance
and stereotyping (or archetyping) those further who indeed are so. What Morris is advocating is that disabled
people be represented only as normal human beings; and by ‘normal’
she means that they fulfil standard criteria as laid down in constructed social
processes for independence and employability. Such a perspective will result in selective,
and attractive, disabilities being included in both cinema and society but such
a philosophy (one to which Morris adheres, such as when she states that the advertisements
admired by Longmore are 'a joy to watch' [p.113]), is problematic from a Social
Model perspective.
The perspective is problematic as it creates a hierarchy within disability
and necessitates further exclusions for many severely impaired people. Morris is excellent at describing the way in which various films, which
emphasise disability as an individual problem, fail to offer the viewer all the
alternatives that could give the disabled character a better understanding of
his situation. 'His' situation is
a key thread of Morris's criticism. Disabled
women are for Morris almost excluded as cinematic characters except when as deaf
or blind people. Yet she fails to
give a detailed reason for this except to blame male domination of the movie industry
and its own concern with its fear of impotency and dependency.
Such a view is somewhat reductionist since it ignores the reality that
(financially and often educationally at least) women are constructed in discourse
as naturally 'disabled' by their being women; as Aristotle wrote: 'the female
is as it were a deformed male' (cited in Davis, 1995, p.126). Freud was equally malecentric in his analysis of male / female
identities. The notion of ‘woman
as disabled’ adds to the complexity of the issue and indicates the way in
which a range of social constructions of various categories of people (by race,
gender and sexuality, for example) do not work in isolation but that they affect
and effect one another. Significantly, though, Morris does point
out that no alternatives are given to explain how various impairments and the
subsequent disablement can be overcome and / or made less stressful with the use
of aids and finance, for example, on the eradication of destructible barriers. Morris's book is overly concerned with how disabled women get a raw deal
in the politics of disability – an emphasis that is not quite true and furthermore
belittles those women who have led the movement. A strong riposte to such a view, with
examples, is given in Barnes (1996; 1998). Equally, Morris is often contradictory in her treatments of
similar situations where there is a male and not a female in the given situation.
If one looks at her view of Duet For One, for example, this becomes
obvious. She writes: [T]he
(film) is very powerful, not least because it reflects not just the loss which
is sometimes an integral part of having a condition such as multiple sclerosis,
but also how the nature of that loss is determined by what went before rather
than the condition itself. (p.105) It is difficult to see how Born on the Fourth of July and
Whose Life Is It Anyway? (and, in a different way, My Left Foot) fail
to do exactly the same. The whole
thrust of those movies, and their concern with sexual functioning, is that it
is for most people different to have been normal and then become abnormal, especially
if the individual has not 'changed' as a person. Thus, I would agree that to examine the
past could be a pertinent and valid exercise in looking at acquired impairment,
but just as much for a male as a female writer or for disabled characters. Morris misses the point in Duet
For One’s narrative conclusion that the protagonist’s
(a)moral past is the implied reason given for her present condition, a representation
that is an even more suspect use of patriarchy than Morris identifies in the film;
but when a male character uses his past to justify his present psychological state,
in Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Morris
condemns this: '[I]t
is surprising', he remarks of her behaviour when in his room, 'how relaxed a woman
can become when she is not in the presence of a man'. To Ken (a newly disabled quadriplegic),
paralysis has robbed him of what his masculinity meant to him, and he is thereby
robbed of what he defines as his humanity. (p.106) It is justifiable to say that Ken is mistaken; impairment has not robbed
him of his masculinity (if you re-define masculinity as not solely residing in
heterosexual penile power), except in his own eyes and those of society in their
constructed socialisation of what is masculinity and a ‘real’ man.
The film leaves us in no doubt that his past value as a human being was
strongly rooted in the power (both symbolical and literally) of his penis, a power
he no longer has. Significantly, the statements that he
makes do, for many similarly impaired males (whether impotent or not), have a
strong element of truth. The film's
failure, from a Social Model methodology analysis, is that
it does not question of what masculinity consists; it only reinforces one view
of it by equating the loss of penis power with death. The film's failure is in not stating that
Ken is seen differently by women (et al) because
he is now impotent (a realistic portrayal). That disability (rather than impairment) robs the individual
of his / her sexuality in this society is a fair statement; what is at stake is
that it happens through construction and not as a result of some natural course
of action. It is not the impairment
that is significant, but the social construction of impotency as emasculation.
Morris' philosophy, the idea of a positive representation being that which
shows disabled people as normal, robs the individual of the right to see that
in this society it is not normal; nor is it experienced - or constructed - as
positive to have an impairment. To
take it a step further, I would argue that the least positive disabled images
are those that show disability as 'a secondary characteristic' (p.112) - the very
images that Morris thinks of as extremely positive - because, above all else,
disability is not a secondary characteristic for many who are impaired / disabled,
as the Social Model and this thesis using that model clearly demonstrate. The positive images,
so admired by Morris and Longmore, marginalise those with severe impairments even
further because the latter are unable to imitate any semblance of normality or
benefit from the attempt to normalise them. Morris, as is Longmore, is good at listing the types of disabled people
that exist in cinematic representation, such as when she states that: the
most common representation of disability in television and on the cinema screen
is a wheelchair user because the wheelchair offers the most obvious and easiest
way of presenting a recognisable disability. (p.98) Morris is right, statistically speaking - for detailed statistical data
on disability imagery on television, and films shown on television, see Cumberbatch
and Negrine’s 1992 study on the subject, a study which is discussed below.
As such it can be said that the common perception of the disabled is related
to it: to be impaired is to be in a wheelchair.
On reflection, that wheelchairs are the most common images of disability
in cinema is not wholly surprising considering that it is an image-based medium
that requires speed of recognition in order to establish rapid identification;
‘broad bush strokes’ as Dyer calls it (1993[a]). Stereotypes, however simplistic, ensure
through their symbols faster understanding of the director’s (writer’s
/ film’s) intentions. It could also be said that the wheelchair user is the most
often noticed, irrespective of numbers, because they are what constitute 'disability'
in the eyes of the viewer and culture at large. The wheelchair and its user are the symbol
of disability (even when parking). Personally,
I notice more wheelchairs because I use one (as does Morris).
In society at large, epileptics have always been a little harder to spot
as they are members of that massive army of people with invisible impairments. As such, in films, it is quicker to include a shot of a wheelchair
than attempt to portray epilepsy, et cetera. Another of Morris's main source books is Lauri E. Klobas' Disability
Drama in Television and Film (1988). The weakness of Klobas' text is that it
has undertaken the massive task of indexing American references to disability
on television (in particular) and on film. It is split into sections (e.g., one on 'blindness', another
on 'small-stature'), and gives brief production details, synopsis and a comment
on whether it is a positive or negative portrayal of disability. Although it is extensive, it is an American
orientated text, it does make major omissions of examples from British cinema:
films that range from Mandy (Alexander Mackendrick,
GB, 1952) to more recent films such as Woman of Straw (Basil
Dearden, GB, 1964) and Baxter (Lionel
Jeffries, GB, 1972). Klobas' text is an excellent introduction that is, above all else, taxonomical. Its introduction and conclusion, though very brief, list all the formulae and stereotypes that appear to her to be symptomatic of disability representation. They do not vary significantly from those of Longmore and Morris, but are, none the less, important as a guideline of what to expect when viewing an impaired character on the screen. Klobas states that: [A]ny
critic worth her / his salt will argue that for the most part, film and television
stories are repetitive regardless of subject matter. That may be true, but those pieces play
to an audience that can evaluate what is being seen from personal experience.
On the other hand, the general audience is uninformed about persons with
disabilities and has little cautionary discretion for guidance.
People with disabilities are broadly defined onscreen as falling within
one or two character types: They are defeated, angry people who require help,
or they are 'never-say-die' types who accept disability as a 'physical challenge'
and go out to conquer the world. (p.1) I agree, to some extent, with Klobas' two types of stereotype (as my later
chapter on the validity of calling all images of disability stereotypical demonstrates),
yet the same could be said of blacks, gays, women and even men.
It is an analysis that is useful as a starting point but needs developing
if one is to appreciate fully the specificities, causes and attributes, of representations
of impairment and disability. Klobas
does not really extend her analysis, understandably, in any greater depth; instead,
she simply lists all the examples she herself and her colleagues can collate –
of which there are hundreds. A key reason for the survival of simplistic stereotypes is that the audience
is informed (not uninformed, as Klobas states) by personal experience.
Personal experience is as socially determined, or mediated, as is film;
equally, disabled people have to live their lives, and base their everyday philosophies,
upon the medicalised models that influence cinematic representation. When Klobas rhetorically asks: '[D]oes it ever end?' (p.437),
the answer is, without a doubt, ‘No’. No, because the disabled inhabit a 'state'
that is placed upon them. Taken to
its full extent, if a character or individual in life does not fit one of the
two stereotypes Klobas states, he / she is not 'disabled'. Klobas sees positive representation of impairment (although she also calls
it disability), just as do Morris and Longmore, in the advertisements that show
disabled people 'as part of life' (p.438); stating that: '[F]or once, episodic
television and movies should take a cue from the commercials'. Klobas also writes that the love scene
in Coming Home is 'a beautiful and honest love scene' and that
it was 'the first decent and honest piece to come along since The Men, twenty eight years before' (p.136) and, as such,
it is not difficult to identify Klobas’ polemical perspective. For Klobas, positive representation is
primarily that which shows disabled people as normal, sexually satisfying and
attractive characters. Yet, as I
have already pointed out, this bears little relationship to disability as lived
by most people and it relegates those unable to fulfil that role (either physically
or due to social constraint) even further down the scale of acceptability.
One can already see that the disabled movement is setting an agenda of
what are acceptable 'good cripple' and unacceptable 'bad cripple' representations.
There is, however, a misreading of the central character's ability in Coming
Home to
be sexually penetrative since he is not so. An interpretation of the sex scene in Coming Home which,
from a Social Model perspective, is more positive. It is progressive because it shows disability
and impotency to be mutually conducive in offering sexual fulfilment and gratification;
imagery which is thus antithetical to the conventional. Interestingly, the only film I have seen
to date that actively shows oral sex as positive - apart from Coming Home
- is a horror movie directed by
George Romero, made in 1988, called Monkey Shines (George
Romero, US, 1988). Nevertheless,
even this potentially positive representation is negated through the central character’s
receiving a miracle cure at the end of the film; thereby ensuring that the superiority
of normality is eventually reinforced over difference.
More recently the Spanish film Live Flesh had a similarly constructed
positive view of oral sex but even in this film it was negated in favour of a
conventional bourgeois able-bodied familial conclusion. Cumberbatch and Negrine's study for the Broadcasting Research Unit, Images
of Disability on Television (1992), is perhaps the best view of disability imagery that
I have so far found. This is mainly
because it places disability within a context of social meaning and it works with
the idea that images are, by their nature, limited in a formula industry.
Although it is a study of television, most of the representations discussed
are from films that have been shown on television.
Relating back to Longmore's point that there are hundreds of portrayals
of disability on film, Cumberbatch and Negrine state that: [T]he
type of programme most likely to include people with disabilities (in a study
of six weeks television) was feature films, of which 41 per cent portrayed characters
with disabilities. (p.51) However, factual programmes came a very close second with repeated portrayals
of impairment in a charity or medical context where they were either 'plucky'
or 'brave'. As disability is so often
portrayed 'factually' as medicalised or dependent, it can be no surprise that
fiction creates its portrayals in a similar vein. The success of Cumberbatch and Negrine's
book is in its statistical appraisal of impairment characteristics, even though
it fails to connect statistical data to the social constructionist nature of disability. The false public perception of impairment is that it affects and afflicts
the young (Oliver, 1991), and media representations seem to be where the misconception
is either coming from or being reinforced. Cumberbatch and Negrine, based on the
population census a calculation of the percentage of the disabled for various
age groups. They then compared their
findings with ‘television population’ statistics that they compiled,
an exercise that makes quite astounding reading. The actual number of people under the
age of fifty who are disabled in the ‘real’ world is 16.5%, whilst
the number in 'television's world' is over sixty per cent. Thus, in the television world, which includes
a high proportion of cinema films, not only are younger people much more likely
to be disabled in some way but infant disability seems almost compulsory.
Cumberbatch and Negrine offer convincing statistical evidence that severe
impairments are the most often shown, and that the occurrence is over-represented
in comparison to the real population. They state: [L]ocomotor,
behaviour and disfigurement problems are relatively overrepresented in the television
population, whereas communication and continence problems are relatively underrepresented.
We may explain the prevalence (of one above the other because) they are
easiest to represent, they are immediately apparent [ ... ] in a single camera
shot. Incontinence may be underrepresented because
of lavatorial taboos. (p.25) Cumberbatch and Negrine are beginning to see that two factors are vital
in an understanding of representations of disability in film and on television:
firstly, simplicity (and therefore the severity of an impairment) of image is
vital; and secondly, that the social process is just as important in determining
what image is shown. They continue:
[A]
further set of reasons for the choice of disabilities featured on television can
be suggested by reference to the ubiquity of the wheelchair as an index of disability,
and the readiness with which it is called to mind in relation to disability.
People working in (the media) are both a part of our culture, and are themselves
aware of it. Thus when they want to include a disabled
role, they are likely to think of locomotor handicaps necessitating a wheelchair,
and that this is an icon of disability that the public will recognise. (pp.25-6) Cumberbatch and Negrine accept that film-makers are as constrained by public
conceptions as by their own imaginations, which, in turn, are equally socially
mediated and constructed. Cumberbatch and Negrine reveal the importance of seeing the 'disabled role'
as an important benchmark for all the other roles in the film. They use as an example The Good,
The Bad and The Ugly (Sergio Leone, Italy, 1966), citing the scene
in the film where Lee Van Cleef's character is engaged in conversation by a character
who is a double leg amputee called 'Half Soldier'. Cumberbatch and Negrine not only suggest
that amputees are seen as half human but that 'the incapacity of "Half Soldier"
contrasts with the physical excellence of the character played by Lee Van Cleef'
(p.44). Consequently, we can see that, for these authors, impairment
has more than its own specific limitations and / or metaphor in play in the narrative.
They give an unidentified example of when the police are chasing a criminal
and a wheelchair is blocking the road, causing the police to lose the criminal. They argue that such an incident shows
more than just the ability of disabled people to block the road: 'it is almost
as if disabled people are interfering with the proper running of society' (p.50).
Cumberbatch and Negrine are the first writers I have come across who say
more than just 'stop it, it's not true' in relation to what they still see as
negative representations of the disabled probably because they themselves are
not disabled. Interestingly, the disabled critics (Longmore
and Morris, for example) talk of the disabled as a homogeneous group much more
than do the non-disabled writers. Cumberbatch and Negrine state that impairment is a multiplicity
of conditions that, at the very least, mean different things to different people. One of the primary methods cinema uses to perpetuate disability (or any)
stereotypes, and / or archetypes, is by leaving certain factors absent. Cumberbatch and Negrine state that: [I]t
is instructive to examine what films tend not to emphasise. We very rarely see the topic of disability
introduced as a social issue. The
customary highly individualistic struggle masks the possibility that disability
results not only from an individual's limitations but also from an environment
which is designed with only able-bodied people in mind. There are strong suggestions in many films
that disability is about courage and achievement rather than suggesting that it
is an issue for which society as a whole should take responsibility. (p.54) It is, for Cumberbatch and Negrine, important to look as much at what is
absent as what is present; as such, it is a methodology which enables one to see
how impairment is constructed as the Other. Other writers fleetingly mention disability as the Other, but
only as a reference to disability as a narrow stereotype that panders to public
misconceptions. They do not de-construct
the mechanisms by which it is constructed; nor do they relate it to a direct multiplicity
of discourses that both affect and effect it. Cumberbatch and Negrine define three broad categories of disability stereotype
in cinema: the criminal, the subhuman and the powerless or pathetic character.
I see no reason to challenge these categories as broad taxonomies; the main difference
between this, the other works looked at and my research, which follows, is revealed
in Cumberbatch and Negrine's conclusion on films and disability: [I]t
is difficult to avoid the impression that there is usually an ulterior motive
for the inclusion of disabled characters in films and dramas. Perhaps the most obvious is the use of
suffering and disadvantage, followed by bravery and willpower, to stir tender
emotions in the audience; though the mechanisms whereby this occurs remains elusive.
Other motives are the use of disabled characters [ ... ] to enhance an
atmosphere of deprivation, mystery, violence and menace.
(p.61) The aim of my research is to reveal the mechanisms used to create such
atmospheres and place them within a context of alternatives. This thesis would argue that Cumberbatch
and Negrine under-estimate the power of stereotypes (and archetypes) whilst at
the same time acknowledging that they recognise their own text’s theoretical
insularity. They claim: [N]ot
to condone the actions of [the media but it] is first and foremost a medium of
entertainment rather than a medium of 'social engineering'. (p.102) Whilst agreeing, to some extent, I would argue that cinema does enable
people to construct their own sources of identity and interpret various social
processes. Conversely, I do not think
that positive images of disability per se would
create a more socially equal society; positive representations of disability are
not viable as disability is a negative social construct. The negativity of disability is inherent
within it and promoted by disability’s existence as a category (Canguilhem,
1989). Steve Dwoskin (1991) postulates the idea that disability suffers a media
apartheid because stigma is always attached to disability and it is, by logical
corollary, negative. Dwoskin fails
to see that disability can be nothing else but negative because it exists as a
devaluing grouping or label, and is, consequently, created as a socially stigmatised
existence that needs to be separated at worst, or simply identified at best, from
the rest of normal society. ‘Disability’
per se, in its existence -
construction as a reality - ensures that it is interpreted negatively by any group
who sees, constructs, labels and interprets impairment as the cause of disablement.
Logically, 'interpreters' have no alternative if they wish to maintain
the illusion that normality and abnormality are pathological realities as opposed
to social constructs: i.e., that disability exists a priori. The only writer to see that positive images of Otherness cannot exist in
a society that constructs an Other - our society - is Sander L. Gilman, who in
Disease and Representation (1988) states that: [A]ll
images, artistic or scientific, whether they enter naively or self-consciously
into our awareness, are abstractions from diverse phenomena. (p.12) As disability is constructed within society by a multiplicity of discourses,
as a negative experience, as a pathological reality that speaks for itself, then
it is irrational to expect a vital, normalising, part of social discourse (cinema)
to break free from its own shackles, and from those of a wider society.
David Hevey, in The Creatures Time Forgot (1992), shows how charity photography and advertising
degrade and make dependent those disabled people they attempt to help (by using
black and white photography, in contrast to colour, alongside dehumanising text).
Yet, where he advances the idea that alternatives are possible if charities
do not exist (i.e., capitalism does not exist), he defeats his own argument. If charities do not exist, disability
cannot exist due to the fact that is charities - following Hevey’s own argument
- who solely create it: creating it out of their use and abuse of people with
impairments, thereby constructing disability as impairment as they carry out their
disabling activities of objectifying and (often) institutionalising the impaired.
Consequently, it must be stated that positive images of disability cannot
exist in a society where disability is constructed or exists, be that by charities
or any other disabling discourse. Impairment will always exist, but disability need not; it is
disability not the impairment which disables the impaired (Oliver, 1990; Oliver,
1991; Barnes, 1991) from the Social Model perspective. The value of all of the texts that I have looked at is that they provide,
in total, an index of the way the disabled are stereotypically represented.
What they fail to do is to show that a recognition of the significant differences
in those stereotypes is vital in order to understanding how disability is used
to construct and protect a fragile idea(l) of what is normal. The impaired, as an image, are a fairly
stable creation (in their many forms they are what normality is not) of what the
Other are. Later, I shall show the
mechanics through which normality is asserted as positive and how the idea of
the disabled stereotype is far too simplistic. For Cumberbatch and Negrine disability can be categorised fairly
generally in the following ways (though they use the term 'disability' when they
actually mean impairment – even from their perspective): - disability as an emblem of evil; - disability as 'monstrous'; - disability as a loss of one's humanity; - disability as dependent and lacking in self-determination; - disability as maladjusted; - disability as sexual menace, deviancy, danger
and impotence; - disability as the object of fun or pity; - disability as the object of charity; - disability as having 'Other' (abnormal) talents; - disability as being in need of extra effort
or adaptation. Simply Stereotypes? Much of the writing on impairment imagery seems to be little other than
semantics; a dense jungle of words whose variance is negligible. The difference(s)
between a stereotype, archetype, type, prototype and sub-type, or even a myth,
seems to depend upon the perspective of the writer or the academic discipline
that he, or she, is representing; the inclusion of 'disability theory' only serves
to muddy the waters further. The most problematic area of definition is between stereotype
and archetype. For the sake of clarification
I shall start by giving my definitions of the two key problematic areas.
A stereotype is a social construction (image, representation or whatever)
which denies the truth of that which it represents by replacing it with an alternative
which the stereotyper presumes to be true but which is, in reality, socially constructed.
A stereotype does not inherently reveal that it is a social construct but
passes itself off as a truth. An
archetype, on the other hand, works in a similar manner but it is a creative interpretation
that is presumed (and designed) to be a universal truth without question by those
who construct, consume and appraise it; it has the appeal of a timeless truth
which the stereotype does not. Significantly,
an archetype may become a stereotype when the subjects of that archetype stand
up and challenge the archetype; as was the case with women in feminism (Perkins,
1979), blacks in challenging racism (Cripps, 1977) and gays in Queer Studies (Dyer,
1993[a]). Within stereotypes and archetypes there is no acknowledgement that they
are social constructs, but - and this is the key - archetypes are seen as true
whereas stereotypes are seen as false by many who consume and appraise them (Oakes
et al, 1994). The difference is academic, quite literally,
but significant when trying to challenge images (i.e., of the impaired) which
are omnipresent and assumed to be universally true. In general terms I would argue that images, and the reality, of disability are seen and created more archetypally than stereotypically (the accepted view) because disability and abnormality are seen as axiomatic; as self- |